Live updates: Former FSU, NFL player Travis Rudolph returns to court for day 6 of murder trial

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WEST PALM BEACH — Day six of the murder trial of former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph began Thursday. Prosecutors are poised to rest their case Friday.

Attorneys for both sides presented opening statements last week, one casting Rudolph as the aggressor and the other insisting he was a victim. Rudolph, who played briefly in the NFL, is charged with murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with a fatal shooting outside of his Lake Park home two years ago.

Four men appeared on Rudolph's doorstep shortly after midnight onApril 7, 2021, to confront him about a dispute he had with his girlfriend hours earlier. The confrontation turned violent, Rudolph said, and he armed himself with an AR-15.

Prosecutors say the men were trying to flee in a black Cadillac by the time Rudolph fired 39 rounds in their direction, killing Sebastien Jean-Jacques in the passenger seat.

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Latest updates: Lead detective defends her investigation on day 7 of Travis Rudolph murder charge

 Travis Rudolph, center, with his defense attorneys Marc Shiner, right, and Heidi Peret during the murder trial of former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph in West Palm Beach, Florida on May 26, 2023.
Travis Rudolph, center, with his defense attorneys Marc Shiner, right, and Heidi Peret during the murder trial of former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph in West Palm Beach, Florida on May 26, 2023.

Rudolph asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen to dismiss the case last year on the basis of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which permits the use of deadly force to protect against death or great bodily harm. Gillen denied his request, leaving jurors to decide whether Rudolph ended Jean-Jacques' life to save his own.

Follow along for live updates from inside the courtroom, where the proceedings resumed at 8 a.m. Thursday.

Rudolph defense attorney accuses lead detective of not caring

The young men who confronted Rudolph all said he was the aggressor, shooting at them nearly 40 times while they tried to flee. Rudolph's defense attorney Marc Shiner pressed lead detective Emily Vander-Laan to explain why she was so quick to believe them.

Vander-Laan interviewed Keishaun Jones and Chris Lowe, two of the four men, for about ten minutes each. Both told her that no one in their posse had a gun, though a K-9 found the firearm Tyler Robinson dumped about an hour later.

Shiner asked why Vander-Laan didn't search for other discarded weapons, interrupting the detective when she said there was "no evidence" that others existed.

"How can you find evidence if you don't even bother looking?" he asked. "Does it magically just show up?"

"I don't waste taxpayers' money to look for things that I have no information exists," she said.

Shiner asked why the detective never questioned Keishaun Jones' text calling Rudolph a "dead man walking," or his decision to park a block and a half away from Rudolph's house. Vander-Laan disagreed with Shiner's suggestion that she simply didn't care enough to ask, at one point accusing him of "twisting" her words.

Defense attorney Marc Shiner in court during the "stand your ground" hearing for Travis Rudolph, the onetime Cardinal Newman and FSU football player, Tuesday, March 8, 2022 in West Palm Beach. Rudolph, 26, is charged with one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder in connection with a shooting that killed Sebastien Jean-Jacques. He has asked the court to dismiss the case, invoking the Florida law.

Man who confronted Rudolph tried calling the football player hours earlier

Rudolph ignored six phone calls from his then-girlfriend's brother, Keishaun Jones, hours before Jones showed up to confront him about allegedly mistreating his sister. Keishaun Jones began calling at 9:47 p.m.

Rudolph had his number saved in his phone as "Keishaun lil bro," said Emily Vander-Laan, a detective with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. He missed the first two calls and rejected the third. Jones called three more times in the span of a minute, and Rudolph ignored those, too.

Jones testified last week that he arrived at Rudolph's home about two hours later because he wanted to talk to Rudolph. He said he brought three friends to prevent the former NFL player from trying to hurt him the way he allegedly hurt Jones' sister.

The subsequent fistfight happened in the front yard, out of the view of Rudolph's Ring doorbell camera. Jones, along with his friends Chris Lowe and Tyler Robinson, testified that Rudolph became violent first, picking up Jones and dropping him to the ground.

Rudolph will testify after prosecutors rest their case.

Investigators never searched shooting victim's phone

Detective Jeff Cunningham with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said he analyzed the phone records of everyone who confronted Rudolph, except for Jean-Jacques. No one knew the passcode to unlock his iPhone, Cunningham said.

He told jurors it can take detectives years to bypass a phone's security measures when the passcode is missing. Marc Shiner, Rudolph's defense attorney, grilled Cunningham on what little he could glean from Jean-Jacques' phone.

Shiner noted that it was on Airplane mode, a feature that would prevent detectives from tracking its movements. Detective Vander-Laan testified later that it’s typical for detectives to place phones in Airplane mode while performing, or attempting to perform, data extractions.

The defense attorney also pressed Cunningham to explain why he didn't analyze the phone of Rudolph's brother, who lived with him and participated in the brawl in the front lawn. Cunningham said he wasn't asked to.

Tyler Robinson, one of four men who confronted Travis Rudolph at his home points at a photo with Assistant State Attorney Francine Edwards during the murder trial of former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph in West Palm Beach, Florida on May 26, 2023.
Tyler Robinson, one of four men who confronted Travis Rudolph at his home points at a photo with Assistant State Attorney Francine Edwards during the murder trial of former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph in West Palm Beach, Florida on May 26, 2023.

Texts and internet searches on the other men's phones are part of Rudolph's defense. Keishaun Jones texted that Rudolph was "a dead man walking" after his sister accused her then-boyfriend of slamming her to the ground. His sister, Dominique Jones, responded: "Please go shoot his s*** up."

She deleted the message, but later told investigators about it before they searched her phone. Jurors heard a selection of Dominique Jones' internet search history read aloud last week, which included terms "accessory to murder," "stand your ground" and the name of Rudolph's lawyer.

Defense attorney Heidi Perlet asked Jones if a guilty conscience prompted her interest in the topics, but Jones denied it.

Shiner accused Tyler Robinson, one of the men who accompanied Jones' to Rudolph's home, of "sizing" the football player up when he searched the football player's name on Google. Robinson arrived at Rudolph's home with a handgun in his pocket but said he never pulled it out or intended to use it.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Travis Rudolph trial update: Defense lawyer faults PBSO investigators